Warning: The wind farm project could rise again

Posted May 13, 2019

In a just world, the victors would be given time to relish their triumph. However, we do not live in a just world.

While the taste of victory is still sweet upon the lips of those who fought so well to defeat the wind farm, now is the time to issue the first warning of its eventual return. P.T. Barnum made a fortune with his carnival and circus, so the man was nobody’s fool. Much of his wealth was made by capitalizing upon the gullible, and it was he who famously said there was a sucker born every minute and they all lived.

There are still a great many gullible suckers around who believe that they can get something for nothing and that “easy” money is there for the taking. Fortunately, there are also a great many people around who are not easily taken in by false claims.

If the wind farm concept was viable, it would have flourished without mass infusions of taxpayer money. It took massive government subsidies to get them started, and it will require massive amounts of taxpayer money to remove them once their life expectancy has expired, points avoided during the recent debates.

We were told only about the “benefits” of the wind farm that would come about during their working lives. I strongly suspect that most of those benefits were based upon misleading, best-case examples and that the true income produced for the county would fall well below those stated figures.

I sincerely hope that the wind farms have been banished forever from the plains of DeWitt County. However, like Lazarus of the Bible, I fear that at some point in the not-too-distant future, the wind farm will once again be given new life. The irresistible temptation of the siren call of free money will once again be sung across our fair land.

Paul Williams

Kenney

Editor’s note:

According to Forbes’ magazine, although wind energy has received the most in various federal subsidies on a dollar basis, based on subsidies per kWh of electricity produced, solar energy has received more that 10 times the subsidies of all other energy sources combined. The nuclear, coal and natural gas industries also continue to receive several billion dollars in federal money annually, although the total money going to energy producers in general has decreased from $38 billion to $29 billion since 2010. Even the hydroelectric industry still receives taxpayer money, even though there hasn’t been a major hydroelectric project in the U.S. since the 1950s.